Author: Deidre

From my window -bundles and bundles of electric wires drooping from balcony to balcony, almost roofing the alleyway. Teatowels, aspidistras, camellias, giant avocados and palms. Green, red and blue corrugated rooves. Seaside white and blue plastic mats. Shuttered windows. Agile elderly ladies cycling in conical bamboo hats. Delicate powder blue 1920's ironwork and bulging iron…

We often eat at a huge, noisy food hall off the campus along the main road in the evening.  There are 94 items on the menu, all in Vietnamese. We take our dictionaries and guide books in an effort to try and categorize the food pages and make some sense of it. The staff crowd…

Walking back through the alleyways to our apartment in the dusk, music tumbles out of a second floor apartment – rousing, unity type of music with choruses seeming to span time in their stereophonic tonal quality, together with an unexpected Scottish roaming in the gloaming feel. The love Ho showed his people lingers with me…

The Crash of Capitalism This sounds a suitable Sunday outing, but Ho Chi Minh's Mausaleum is closed. It closes for 3 months every year for essential renovations – what, to the body? Ho Chi Minh’s body will be back on November 20th. Good to have diary dates.  But we Number 22 Hanoi bus- it to…

We try to get out by 8.30 in the morning to explore further afield in our locality. We walk through the dark alleyways of the food market and reach a lake. We cross the bridge in the direction of a building spilling with people. We enter. Grins and beckonings and wood and metal chairs rushed…

Tuyn is six. He is unable to walk because he has cerebral palsy, so according to Vietnamese custom he does not go to school. I am asked to do some work with him upstairs where a member of staff is helping him copy some numbers. We read What is the time Mr. Wolf? with lots…

This is a marvellous place and I have delightful session. About 10 children aged 6-13 drift gradually in to the art room where I have elected to work. All activities here are voluntary. I would become maudlin if I described the children – beautiful, homeless. They come to the centre when they want. It is…

 No-one here believes that we take the local buses, rather than a taxi, but we do. The bus has its own lane sometimes and can be faster than a taxi. To boot, you can travel the length and breadth of Hanoi for 7p and all life is there. I am on the No 1 bus…

  We are invited to eat with Phoungh, a former teacher in the rural province where we will be teaching next, now a driver in Hanoi. He has heard we are interested in cooking and wants to cook with us. We eat on a low plastic table adjacent to the double bed. His brother and…

I am finding the process of writing for a blog difficult, and it's not just the fact that internet comes and goes and the university library shuts at 5.45. It's the concept of a blog which is new to me. I am OK writing for an unknown audience, or to friends and family, but the…